San Fran,,,,,Here comes the sun, fit fine.

Pleasant flight. On approach to San Francisco International airport, it seemed apparent from looking outside that I would have no use for my fleece, jacket and scarf in this town. Time to get the Hulk pants on and sunscreen out I think. Sure enough, I was looking down the barrel of 5 days averaging 20-27 degrees, what hardship.
Came out of the train station, up escalators and looked around, street performers, musicians, trams, old fella’s playing chess & not a jacket in sight. This is going to be a good few days I suspect.
Hostel was large, great location, friendly atmosphere and clean. First night went for a long walk through Chinatown, where the streets were vibrant with markets, restaurants and tacky San Fran souvenirs. The long hilly street lead me into little Italy next to Washington Square where I stopped for a pizza, huge portion, muchos cheapos. On the way back I past a pub called the Edinburgh Castle and of course had to investigate, turned out to be a guy from Greenock who owned it. Alan ended up giving me a couple of pints on the house before making my merry way home to the hostel, the hot weather and walking had taken its toll for the day. (Oh yeah and the free pints).
Was feeling brave the next morning and decided to take a run down Market Street to the Golden Gate Park. Pheewww! Bad idea almost had a stroke on the way. Decided to walk the last mile through Haite street which is full of interesting spots. On approach to the park there was a number of people with placard boards demanding a proper inquest into the 911 investigation. I had thought that there was going to be clashes of arguments and shouting but was very tame. I learned that there was also an anti war demo on Golden Gate Bridge earlier in the day, with a group called think pink? The bridge was a good distance from where I was so I gave it a miss, plus I didn’t have anything in pink.
The Golden Gate park is apparently one of the biggest urban centre parks in the world, 5 miles from the entrance gate to the beach. I also think it sells the most dope than any other city park, on walking 15 mins to hippy hill I must have been offered “hey man, want some weed dude?” 15 times, “Nae thanks min I dinna de at”. Hippy Hill is basically a larger version of the hill in Kelvingrove park (well kind of,, nae neds of course), hundreds of folk sitting around taking it easy, down at the bottom of the hill was a group of approximately 50 musicians and dancers, all performing together, lots of bongos. I decided to take a wee seat, eat my sandwiches made at breakfast and enjoy the free show. During the show, I saw what looked like a Vietnam vet in a wheelchair drunken dancing and screaming (kinda like Tom Cruise in born on the 4th of July, but scarier), a wee fat guy with a wooden samurai sword practising his version of the ancient art (maybe it was the star wars kid), a small dog the size of a rat getting stood on right next to me even after my attempts to warm the clumsy oaf (quite a yelp the wee fella gave), when 30 minutes had past a man behind me obviously had nominated himself as the park timekeeper and would yell the current time followed by Huraaaaaa! (and much laughter) and much more.
It would seem people park in the park in San Fran. Sure why not eh.
At the hostel I met a really sound Swiss guy and Ozzy girl so was great to hang out with new chums. I was a bit worried the 1st night I arrived as there was a gaming conference next door and it seemed everyone in the place was a Gamer Nerd, “hey man wanna play some Doom”,,”errrrr anyone got Pro Evolution Soccer”, apparently that’s not for a true gamer, if only they new, poor cretins. One guy Jeff, nice guy, but a bit strange for the whole time I stayed in the hostel he sat with his shades on in the lounge playing some crazy role-play game on his laptop. I was sitting there one night minding my own business and all I heard from Jeff was “Shit I gotta get me some crossbow bolts” or ‘Dammit, Zargon cast a spell on my army of Zorg”, ok Jeff nice talking to you, you take care now.
Homelessness seems to be a pretty bad problem in San Francisco, most of the beggars are pretty polite though and not threatening at all from what I saw. Plenty of poor folk who really should be in some form of mental care, especially those who are veterans.
Myself and the Ozzy girl Anna went on a big cycle ride which was brilliant, hired the bikes in the morning for $15 and then took off round the south beach, best way to see the city, but be warned there are some steep hills. Over the Golden Gate bridge in the afternoon, blazing sunshine, reach mid point of the bridge and free wheel all the way down, superb. Hit the other side and again free wheel all the way down to this gorgeous wee town, late lunch break. It took us a few hours to get to where we were and the clock was ticking to get the bikes back, fortunately for us there was a ferry leaving at 4 o’clock, nice and plenty other cyclists had the same idea. Only took about 20 mins to rocket across the bay and got real close to the infamous Alcatraz which was great, welcome to the rock, whersh my shlippersh mish money penny.
That night after a quick bite to eat I was totally shattered and in bed by 10, light weight. Also to make things worse I had a repeat of my experience in Nigeria, head band Sam, Mr Red Head. Bright red burnt forehead with white line where head band was, real cool Fiddes, real cool.
Hasta luego.

Oh Yeah, and I got married, sorry I didn't have time to send out the invites but it was a last minute affair, you understand I'm sure. We get on affa well an isn't she an affa bonny lass, fit fine.